Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Some brief streak-related items of late:

In NBA action tonight, San Antonio's Manu Ginobili scored all 24 Spurs' points during a roughly five-minute stretch of his team's game against Atlanta. His one-man wrecking-crew performance started with 2:27 remaining in the first quarter and went until 9:40 remained in the second (article, play-by-play sheet).

By losing to the New York Islanders on Monday, the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins ended a 16-game stretch in which they won 14 times (each time earning two points in the standings) and lost in overtime (or a shoot-out if neither team scored during the extra five minutes of play) in the other two games. For each of those two OT-L games, the Pens received one point in the standings, essentially for achieving a tie in regulation. Thus, Pittsburgh had garnered at least one point for 16 straight games, but now it's over (article, Penguins' game-by-game log).

In reviewing the Pens' game-by-game results, one sees that they appear to be a streaky team. Overlapping October and November, they had a five-game winning streak, followed immediately by a five-game losing streak. Then, from late November, carrying over all the way into January, they lost seven of eight, then won four straight, then lost five straight, then won three straight, and finally, lost three straight. When the season is over, I'll conduct more thorough analyses.

The last item concerns women's NCAA softball. According to this recent University of Kentucky athletic news release, in early 2007 action the Wildcats' Brooke Marnitz:

...set a new NCAA record for hits in consecutive at-bats with 12 straight hits dating back to the final two games of 2006 against Mississippi State. She reached base in 17 consecutive plate appearances with five walks included in the streak. Marnitz started the 2007 season by going 9-9 at the plate with two walks, two doubles, two home runs, a triple and nine RBI.